First, a confession: I'm jealous of another newspaper. That's not something you hear very often in journalism, but the Times's Cycle Safe campaign is worthy of an exception.

For any newspaper to devote the energy, resources and sheer bloody-mindedness to a major push on a subject relatively few Britons possibly care much about is admirable. That it's the Times, still arguably the paper of the Jaguar-driving management classes, makes it all the more unusual and (hopefully) effective.

This is no mere call for tinkering by the paper. Yesterday, its leading article on the campaign explicitly named Copenhagen as the model for the future, calling for wholesale segregated cycle lanes. The paper said, wisely: "It is not enough to daub a few roads with streaks of blue."

So, before I say anything else, hats off to those leading the efforts, the Times's transport correspondent, Philip Pank and the tireless Kaya Burgess, who's written much of the coverage, plus their editor, James Harding.

This is, for any cyclist wearily used to be being ignored and marginalised by those in power, extremely good news. I say that even while simultaneously having my doubts about what this all might achieve.

Before I get to my personal gloom let me ask: who would you like to see give evidence to the inquiry sessions?

But more important still I'd like to see Dr Dave Horton give his views. Unlike Boardman he is not a celebrity. Horton is a sociologist at Lancaster university who led a study that, more than anything, changed my views on cycle policy. The simply-titled Understanding Walking and Cycling took an in depth look into the actual, everyday decisions on transport made by people in four towns and cities around England.

For cycle campaigners the message was grim: the bulk of people are utterly unmoved my pro-cycling campaigns; most have no interest in riding a bike for everyday transport; the bike is seen as "either a toy for children or a vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange".

What put people off was safety, meaning the only way to get the masses onto bikes is through a wholesale construction of segregated bike lanes, nationwide.

It seems a like a contradictory message to Boardman's, but both are right. Cycling is, overall, pretty safe. But most people don't think so, and won't till the infrastructure improves. That is the key message: any serious change must be led from above, with bold government action. Build the bike lanes and they will come.

And that's why I have my doubts. I have great faith in the Commons all-party cycling group, that will lead the new inquiry. But I simply don't believe this government has the will or the vision to take up the Times's challenge.